Crate Paper shares.....

Well I am here today to share all the Crate Paper stuff that I have been meaning to share for far too long! :D I have one of my newest creations made with the Restoration line, and 2 other projects that were up on the Crate blog a looooong time ago!

First up is Vintage Love, that features some of my fav things: a few pics of my antique treasures and the gorgeous Restoration line!! Please forgive the awful picture. :P I am having sooo much trouble photographing here at our new home. (I hate it! I want my old spot back! LOL!) But I am working on finding a better spot. :D Anyway, I really actually had a hard time doing this LO because I just could not get my LO to look good enough to do the collection justice!!! I look at what the other girls did and I just gasp! They are phenomenal! But I really tried and did have fun doing this LO! And I have many more opportunities to give this collection a go so I am pumped about that! :D The background scallop I cut myself after tracing the die cut paper from the Crate Paper collection Lemongrass. (Anyone remember that collection? Feels like a million years ago but I still love that paper!) I love the wonky scallops, but the only things I changed was the fact that I didn't punch the holes that are in the die cut. Next I just decided to play with all the colors in the collection and started lining papers up to see what looked good. I cut flowers and leaves out of the Slipcover paper and mixed them with some of the chipboard, and also cut a few of the doilies out of the gorgeous Doilies paper. The rest just sort of came together, and I found a few alphas in my stash to match-American Crafts Letterbox Geyser chipboard and Webster's Pages Polka Dot alphas.

I do have one more LO that I made with the new line School Spirit, but it has yet to be shown on the Crate blog so I can't show it here yet. Buuuut, they did put up a pic from CHA that had it on their displays, so I think it is ok to show that as sort of a teaser. :D It is the one on the bottom far left. Doesn't look like much from here but it is one of my favs. The pics of Cree smiling are priceless. :D

Next up are the older projects that I had yet to share with you all on here. :P So sorry about that! But here they are!

The first one is a album I made to first help me plan Jed's and my official wedding and then after the wedding it can easily transition into our actual wedding album. :D *Now you may be wondering if you are a blog follower what is going on because Jed and I are already married? The simple way to put it is we eloped! We didn't let anyone know until a few months later when we were already married. :D They knew we were going to get married, but just not right then and most certainly not without the whole family! So we made a promise to the family to have an actual celebration wedding where the whole family can get together to celebrate with us! And that is what I mean by planning our "wedding"* Anyway I made this with a few different Crate Paper lines (Pink Plum, Paper Doll and Lillian) and some things from my stash that I thought mixed in nicely. :D First few pics are the cover and close ups. Oh BTW this binder I got at Target for $3! I upcycled it! :D Fun stuff. And what is even more awesome is that it is made out of all 100% recycled papers so I feel doubley good about it! LOL!

First inside page. The half circle across the right page is actually a pocket. :D So it is handy for putting all sorts of little paper things in to remember to look at.

Next up is the middle folder that I always want to break down and cry about. :P Creedence took a pencil to it! And it's not like an easy erase off sort of thing either. She full on gouged into the paper with that pencil, and there was no way I could hide it! So I tried painting over it and it just turned out like bleh. So sad!! My favorite page: RUINED! Oh well.

And lastly, the cute and simple page. :D I had a blast making this little album! Loads of fun!

And lastly, this LO is very near and dear to me. It is about my mom. And how I miss her so. I really wish she could be here, as I know she would just adore being a Grandma. She loved babies and little ones. Cree is getting a little bit older than baby stage but she is still little. My mom's fav age. :D

I used a butt load of products on this LO! LOL! I really wanted to do a list of all the products but it is just too crazy at the moment, and would take a lot longer than I have time for at this exact second to research and type up! :P So if you are desperately interested in any of things you see on this LO (or any project I have done and not given the products list for) then PLEASE don't hesitate to leave me a comment askin about it! :D I would be happy to answer. So many details and layers on here that I am not exactly sure how I even did it. LOL! But I have this LO sitting on my desk so that I can always have it to look at. I am planning on getting it hung soon in my craft/baby room. I think it will be perfect hung in there.

Well I am in the process right now with pre-scheduling some posts for the next week and maybe even later! It all depends on how much Cree will let me sit here on the comp. I have some projects to finish this weekend and Cree starts speech class again on Monday, so I am trying to get a few posts done before all that starts. Do let me know if there is anything particular you want me to cover or whatnot as I am pre-scheduling. I always just kinda mumble through my posts sharing my stuff, and don't really have any purpose behind them. LOL! Aside from sharing that is. :D I am going to do an update on my belly soon too! I have my 20 week ultrasound coming up and will share the pictures and whatnot as soon as that happens! :D Been feeling lots of moving around and everything! Which is always a wonderful feeling. But it is definitely starting to make me feel sick again! LOL! All the movement means this babe is pushing things around that don't particularly like it. But I am trying to enjoy it all before the wee one gets too big and it becomes just straight uncomfortable! :P

Til next time! Take care!

~Amy

Noel Mignon shares...

Hi Everyone!! I am going to start off slow and try not to overwhelm both you and myself! :P Because I have a lot of catching up to do as far as what I have to share LO wise! So we will just do small shares until it is all up. :D Sounds good!

Here I have a LO that I did for my most recent Noel Mignon post that talks about my fav kit item, the Maya Road Kraft Envelopes! As I say in the post I have about 3 full packs of these but I didn't actually ever use an envelope until I received a couple in my Sunkissed kit.

This was an extremely fun LO to do, as I love doing the patchwork, and the colors in the kit were so awesome all together that I think it just worked out well. :D This LO is about all the different emotions and things going through my head now knowing that we are expecting baby number 2.

I worry for Creedence, I worry for the new baby as I am wiped out enough with Cree, and I am worried for me because I know this will mean a lot less me time. (wow that last one really sounds selfish! :( it's not meant to be, I just know that if I don't get a certain amount of time without a break to just be me then I start to go nuts. don't we all a little bit though?)

I guess I am just in worry mode. I worry about the delivery as I don't want it to be anything like it was with Cree.

I worry about the money of all this (our insurance doesn't cover maternity-and we knew that going into this-so that means it all comes out of pocket. Cree was in the NICU for 5 days because of a long and traumatic delivery. I know that if that happens again that we are going to be in some serious debt. :P Which we are more than willing to go into but it is just a scary thought. And on top of that if it is a boy we don't own anything boyish!!! LOL! I have so much pink from when Cree was little that we are kinda hoping for a girl just out of convenience! :D Makes me sound really cheap. :P)

Gah! You can see that this will never stop if I am allowed to go on all day! LOL! The worries just never end, but I am working real hard on not dwelling on anything, and spending these days that I have with Cree, as she is cuter than ever and is blossoming more and more everyday! Right now she is obbsessed with putting all the baby shoes she found in a bag on all of her dolls. She gave up a while ago on getting them on her feet, and realized that her dolls and stuffed animals fit them much better. But of course, mommy needs to be the one to put them on! LOL! So I am interrupted about 20 times an hour to put little bitty shoes back on feet that the shoes don't fit. :P I think a LO needs to be in the works here. :D

Back to the program now. :D I have a few things Noel Mignon related to share! :D First up, my friend from the Noel Mignon kit club DT, Brittny Lejeune, is hosting a mini book class called My Growing Up Book!!! It looks fantastic!! Click this link to go directly to her website and see all about it! Here is the poster!

Better yet-she is giving away two instruction spots in the class for Free!!! Here is the link to the thread on the message board where you can enter to win! You have until August 7th to get two chances to win!! Good Luck!

And last I am happy to annouce that Noel Mignon kit club is going to be doing a Fun in the Sun Crop from August 9th to the 13th!!! Woohoo!!! I am so excited!!! I have never been a part of a crop so I am really looking forward to it! (Still not sure exactly how things work and what not but that is ok! I'll find out soon enough!) So save the dates! And I hope to see you there!! :D

Well that is it from here! I will be back next time with my CHA stuff for Crate Paper (which was the only CHA stuff I got done! So glad a lot of the morning sickness is going away!). And I'll also catch you up on a few past LOs I still need to share. :D Take care!!!

~Amy

Amy...You got some 'splainin to do!

Said in the best Ricky Ricardo voice I can muster. :P

I look back on my last post and seriously want to bang my head on my desk when I see the date that it was written. :P But seriously can not help but laugh at the title of the post. If only we both knew what was in store after that! LOL!

I can not even begin to explain where I have been or what I have been doing lately, and not have it be an hour long read. The pictures alone would be one of my longest posts ever! :P So, I will be explaining over the length of quite a while, but to kinda sum it up for now it goes something like this: We moved. Which took about a month to do. :P And lost internet during that whole time. Which left me in a huge panic. Finally got out of old house, and got internet set up in the new house. Found out just before the move that we are expecting baby number 2! But a few days after that extreme morning sickness and fatigue set in. Morning sickness and fatigue like I have never felt before in my life. And it has not. stopped. SINCE. And if that wasn't bad enough I for some reason now get the migraines I had quite a while ago back. So needless to say I wake every morning just really not wanting to even get out of bed! LOL! Sigh. (pity party over now! :D) Everyone else is doing great here! Creedence is almost 100% potty trained! :D We are still working on the communicating when she needs to go, and the wearing clothes part. Oh and she still wears a diaper to bed. Other than that she rarely has an accident because she gets up when she needs to go and heads to the bathroom all on her own! :D Of course I follow, but the telling me that she needs to go isn't happening so much. And she is always naked, because she confuses panties with her diaper. So those are the only hiccups. LOL! I can't tell you how proud I am of her for changing to this so quickly! And I am also super happy that she is almost 100% out of diapers, as we were going through a pack in a matter of days! :P That is how much she goes. Yeah I know. Crazy. My house is still in shambles as unpacking hasn't gone so well with me being sick, and Jed has had to work a lot more than usual lately. Which means that my scrap area is in extreme shambles too. But I get my own room now! With a door and everything! :D Which means that Cree won't be getting into any of it anymore. But I will have to have the baby crib and what not in there (which there is plenty of room for) as Cree will be getting her own room now. And I think it works fine because the baby isn't gonna need a whole lot of room anyway. And having the baby seperated from Creedence at night when Cree is learning to sleep in her own room I think will work out much better. Any advice you have on that would be awesome, as having two little ones is going to be a whole different ballgame that we are totally unfamiliar with!

Well that is about all that has been going on personally. The scrappy side of me has been a bit busy lately too! I won't share a whole lot right now as I don't want this to be a super long post but I have lots of LOs and stuff to share! I am very sorry that I haven't kept this place up to date, or even been around to share anything! I'm sure there are lots of you that think I have fallen off the face of the planet! LOL! There have been a few of my fav scrappers that have, and I still miss their blogs and scrappy work! But I am totally here! Just running at about 45% capacity. :P Second trimester is upon me so hopefully I will start feeling a whole lot better soon! :D I am busy right now finishing up CHA stuff, and am really desperately needing to answer some emails that I got months ago and just haven't responded to yet. If you are one of those people-my deepest apologies! A response email is in the works! :D I hope that is comforting.

Well until my next update: Thank you all for still supporting me and sticking around here! :D Be back soon! Take care!

~Amy

Earth to Amy.......Are you there?

Uhhhhh, Amy? Where'd you go? Yeah I kinda disappeared. Sorry bout that! :P It's crazy how fast days go by! I had planned a scheduled post to go live on the 2nd (yeah I know! that was almost 2 weeks ago!), but clearly it never posted! :P Which means that I have no clue how to schedule a post in blogger. LOL! You would think it would be easy, but I didn't really research it, and it was my first time doing it, so honestly I am really not surprised that it didn't post. Me to a T! Clumsy and, predictably, a mess it up kind of person. But I laugh about it! :D I eventually get things to work right, it just doesn't happen the first few times I try. LOL! Oh well.

Anyway, I have things to share, but first, like I said I would, I will tell you how we spent our day on May 1st. (I wrote all of this about my mom days and days ago, so know that when I wrote them I was pretty much talking aloud to my mom, and that it was all relevant at the appropriate time). (I hope that made sense there?)

That particular day is a very special one for my family, as it is the anniversary of my dear mother's passing.

The family tries to get together as much as possible at this time of the year, but this year we all just spent it quietly in our own homes. There is to be a lot of traveling by a good portion of the family towards the end of the month (as my brother comes home from Germany on leave before he ships to Afghanistan!), so spending the first part of the month without family certainly wasn't hard to do, as I know I will see them soon. :D One thing I do every year, to try and remember the happy times with my mom, is to watch all her favorite movies. :D She absolutely loved watching movies, as it was one of the only things she could do for about the last year of life. Creedence and I watched Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (0ne 0f her dear favorites), Up (that wasn't a movie that she saw but I know she would have adored it!), and The Muppets Christmas Carol. :D (We didn't sit for the whole time these were on, they just sort of played in the background while we did other things). And the last movie I watched that day was probably one of the funniest movies I have seen in a long time: Murder By Death. If you haven't seen it, SEE IT! It is classic slapstick, and has a stellar cast. It is an older movie, so if that is not your thing, well I don't know what to say! I absolutely adore it, and am so glad it is on Netflix instant! I have played it several times since last Saturday, mostly at night when I am scrapping. :D My mom loved that one too. :D

Majority of the time we would go down to The Cove (wish I had a pic to show you), which is a little spot on the beach where we spread my mom's ashes. (We know you are not legally able to do that but we did it anyway) But as of recent the cove is inaccessible. The water is just too high and too much sand has been washed out so what used to be an easy hike down some rocks and then a huge sand hill is now a rock cliff with no more sand even remotely close enough to even jump down to. :P Just sitting on the rocks though looking out at the ocean makes me feel closer to her somehow. It has been 7 years, yet somehow the pain has only gotten worse. I am so happy though that I have my family, we are all very supportive of each other and I find myself leaning on them quite often when I am particulary down.

So here is to you Mom!! We miss you and love you lots! I give my little Creedence extra hugs and kisses just for you! (well and for me too!) :D

Cathy Diane Parker-Sonoda Nov 30 1957-May 1 2003

Ok so I started writing this post, didn't include any pictures in it yet, then came back to it a couple days later and totally could not remember what things I had to share! :P LOL! I am losing my brain. I had to look at my older blog posts to see what I had last posted and then figure out what hadn't been posted. I am such a dork!

So! Awesome news! Even though it is most certainly old news now! :P Cosmo Cricket has released a new line called DeLovely!! It is bright, and cheery, and oh so cute! I created two projects with it-a little LO that was fun to do, and a card just because I couldn't resist that little chair!! :D I have another LO in the works, I just havent' finished it yet. :P I'll for sure share when I do, as it will look completely different from these two! :D At least I hope. Like I said, it is still a work in progress. Oh and I wanted to share-I got an email a little bit ago when I posted this LO on 2Peas from Francine Clouden, (who was so nice in the email!) she write this great blog called Craft Gossip!! She does a feature on her blog called Inspiration du Jour, where she features a LO/project that she thinks is inspiring and she asked if she could feature my LO!!! Of course I said YES! I was so honored that she asked! Check out the feature here! Thank you soooo much again Francine for liking my LO that much!!

Next, I wanted to share with you something that I wanted to get up on the blog when it went live on the Crate Paper blog days ago.....My first Crate Paper projects!! Wow it is so scary to see your own pic on there! Makes you scared you will screw up somewhere or something! (:P Ha! Like that would ever happen...to me. Ha ha ha. ha. ha. *total sarcasm* I am just waiting for me to do something silly and not even know it until the whole rest of the scrapbooking world does.) Anyway I am just for now going to link you to the blog as I don't want to make this a super duper picture heavy or really long post today. So I will have that all for you on Tuesday or Wednesday. *PROMISE!* :D I do. Cause I won't be depending on my prescheduling blog post skills.

And the last thing I am going to share on here today is.......I made the Noel Mignon kit club design team!!! I couldn't even believe it!!! I am so thrilled!! Noel's kits are huge, huge! and they are so fun and versatile! She makes the best kits! Hands down. :D I right now have Lemonade Stand, and can't wait to dive in!!! That link will take you to a post where Virginia will show you in a video everything in the kit! I will have more to share on this soon, I am working on my first challenge LO right now and it is going to be super fun!!! :D I'll talk more about all of this later this week.

Well that is all I have for right now, but I will be back in a couple days! Take care everyone!!!

~Amy